Monday, June 11, 2012

Manliness at its pinnacle

This is a story of great agility and prudence.  Or, the complete of opposite of that.

This story is in two parts.  Nay, not two Parts 1 and 2, but Part Saturday and Part Sunday.

Part Saturday.  In preparation of coming to Namibia, my father-in-law, Bryan, and I vowed that we would be getting on the bikes and riding frequently.  Bryan has fallen from the Road Cycling faith and crossed over to Mountain Biking.  I told him of my inexperience, but he told me not to worry, we'd take it slow.  So, after fitting myself to one of his spares, we departed there home and made our way to the trails.  We traveled down a few roads, circled a couple of round-a-bouts, dodged a few cars, and made our way to some nice and easy double track trails.  They were rather flat and simple as we were really just riding to kick the rust off and get our legs back in order.  It was great as I needed to adjust to mountain biking, rocks, sand, etc.

After a few miles or so, we approached some train tracks.  They looked a little steep to me so I decided to fall behind Bryan to see how he would navigate the tracks and then I would follow and take his line.  So, I watched as Bryan made his way up the small hump to first rail and give it a hop over.  I thought "yeah, I'll do it like he did it."  Then, Bryan's back tire caught the first rail and slammed his front tire down just in time to catch the second rail.  The bike came to a standstill, but Bryan did not.  In slow motion, Bryan's back tire came off the ground and his Bronco of mountain bike discarded him effortlessly.  At this moment I thought "nope.  I'm not going to do it like this.  This is going downhill.  Ha! Downhill.  Good one Caleb."  In continued slow motion, Bryan continued to fall forward in the direction of his face.  Bryan was clipped in at the pedals so his feet didn't immediately come out.  Instead his bike continued to flip upside down with him in tow.  But, the Bronco had another buck.  While inverted, his clips gave way and his feet came tumbling after.  At this point, I assumed that Bryan had died and I was planning what I would say at his funeral...and to the police.  Then it also occurred to me that I'm in a foreign land and had no idea where I was standing at that very moment.  This was unfortunate as Bryan was about to suffer from a tremendous brain injury, so we would be left to die out in the cold.  Finally, Bryan fell on his face, neck, then his back.  Meanwhile, I had carefully dismounted my bike and walked over the tracks where Bryan's corpse came to rest.  He stood up. I assumed it was just the nerves and it would all be over soon.  I approached and asked "are you okay?"  He said, "give it a second".  Simultaneously, we both looked down at his knee.  By knee, I actually mean knee.  His knee had unclothed itself of its fleshy garment and it stared back at me.  That's only a mild exaggeration.

Seeing as how Bryan had not actually died and somehow still had a face, I decided I should call for help.  This, of course, is always easier with a phone.  I asked Bryan if he had his.  He wasn't concussed but he did respond with "yes, its in my asdl;kjfj;asdlkfj."  So, having one of our good friends become a police officer last year, I assumed I could master the pat down.  I found the phone.  And no drugs.  I ended up having to call one of the friends of family in Namibia and began organizing the event later to be known as "The Great Rescue."  As I hung up the phone a lady in a truck came around the corner to find both of our bikes strung across the trail, Bryan laying on the ground with his skeleton showing, and me standing over him maliciously holding the phone.  She was nice enough to ask if we needed to be taken somewhere.  When I said we had a ride coming, she then kindly asked me to move my bike so she could get around.  In the end, 15 stitches inside and 10 on the outside.  No riding for 10 days.

Part Sunday

I still desperately wanted to ride as I need to mind my personal fitness.  A group from the church was planning to ride later in the day and invited me to come.  Again, I'm not a mountain biker.  I'm a road cyclist.  And, really, I'm fat and so out of shape I'd be better off in a car but I said yes.  So, again, I embarked on another ride with a larger group after having gained so much expertise from the previous day's ride.  We hit some of the back country (that can actually be seen in the photo from the previous post above).  There were a few more hills and rocks, and a lot more sand.  The sand is rather brutal too.  If you don't hit it just right, it turns your front tire and I think you can see where this is headed.

Anyhow, I suffered up a few hills, carefully traveled down a few hills, dodged a few rocks, navigated some sand, avoided some trees, and didn't see a single lion.  If you reference the previous paragraph, you'll also remember that I'm fat and grossly out of shape, which plays a pretty massive part in my decision making for this next part.

We had finally hit a long stretch of trail that didn't require stopping to open and close gates.  It was mostly downhill with a couple of small climbs in between so everybody took off.  I'm slow up the climbs anyway, and I was being careful on the downhills due to my inexperience.  After a decent distance while the group was pretty well spread out (myself in the rear) I came to a straight, quarter-mile downward decline.  It looked nice and flat, but it would be followed by a rather steep climb that was more than I cared to attack so I started strategizing.  I knew that if I could get up enough speed I would be able to use my momentum to help me up most of the climb.  So, I started picking up speed and decided to open up full bore.  I clicked out of my middle ring into my big ring.  Something didn't feel quite right and I had chain issues a couple of miles back.  I looked down for a moment and saw that everything was fine.  I looked up to a surprise.  As most of you know, dirt roads usually have those ridges that are formed when rain washes part of the road away.  One of those was coming my way.  Since I had looked down, I didn't have time to veer around it so I tried to find my line of least resistance.  As I rode through/over/not exactly sure, something knocked my rear tire out of line and I began to lose control.  Then I hit some of that ridiculous sand which rerouted my front tire.  Now, control was completely lost.  There were a few thoughts that went through my head, the most prevalent being "you've got to be kidding me."  Finally, my bike grew tired of having me around.  It went right.  I went straight.

Fortunately, I know how to fall; tuck and roll.  It's simple.  Don't try to catch yourself with your hands because you'll break your arms and mess up your hands.  I need my hands to play guitar. "Tuck the head, roll the shoulder" is what I said to myself.  I flew, tucked, rolled, and finally landed on my head, bounced to my shoulder, flew some more, became more of a ragdoll, flipped over to my back, back to my front, back onto my shoulder where I skidded another few feet.  I immediately felt dizzy and naseaus as I came to a rest.  My head pounded.  Then the pain hit me at full force.  I let out an indiscernible yell praying that someone would hear.  Then I went into full systems check mode.  "Head? Check. I think.  Neck? Yep, still works.  Back? Good.  Legs? They'll hurt later.  Arms? Ugh.  That won't be pretty."

My friend Pete raced down the hill to find me saying "Oh no, oh no, oh no."  That doesn't usually make me feel confident.  He hopped off and had me go through systems check again.  Friend #2 came down and said "looks like you just bought your first piece of Namibian real estate."  Pete continued checking my status as friend #3 came down and said "hey! looks like you just bought your first piece of Namibian real estate."  We determined that my neck and back were fine while friend #4 came down yelling "looks like you just bought your first piece of Namibian real estate."  I asked if there was any blood.  Pete told me my shirt was shredded and I had a little bit on my knee, but everything seemed to be intact.  At that point, friend #5 came down and predictably said "looks like you just bought your first piece of Namibian real estate."  As I was just thinking that this country needed more jokes, Pete said "Congratulations, looks like you just bought your first piece of Namibian real estate."

All is fine except from some scrapes and much pain.  My head must have taken the most impact as my helmet was completely cracked from the front back to the middle.  You can see the road rash on one of my recent facebook posts.  Bryan and I will likely be playing cards or chess for the next little while.  There are two lessons to be learned from this.

1.  Always, ALWAYS wear a helmet when biking.  It'll save your life.
2.  Comedy is dead in Namibia.

2 comments:

  1. 3. Ditch the mountain bike. Clip in to the road bike.

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  2. How horrible of a friend am I if I say I was laughing at this story?

    Hope you're (both) healing nicely. You all are in my prayers!

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